Trader Michael Taylor looks at indices and the macroeconomic impacts on the market. It’s been another volatile few weeks in the market. The game has now changed, and players must adapt or see their money taken from them. Over the last ten years, private investors could get away without bothering themselves too much about macroeconomics. […]
Category: Comment
When Return of Capital trumps Return on Capital
Jamie Ward returns with his last article for ShareScope to discuss risk and complacency in the market and suggests that the past few years might not be an adequate guide for the future. Markets always go up… Since the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008, there has been a received wisdom to always ‘buy the […]
Weekly Market Commentary 14/02/22 |PZC, K3C, SOLI| Never says “never banks” again?
Bruce suggests that while long term “expensive quality” investments have become increasingly popular as discount rates have fallen, a natural hedge for such a portfolio is bank shares, which could now benefit as rates rise with inflation. The FTSE 100 was up +2% to 7,617 last week. The S&P500 and Nasdaq100 were flat. The real […]
Alpesh Patel on US investing: Latest Smart Money Thinking on a Stock Market Crash
The S&P 500 has shed 500 points amid inflation fears. It’s been a punishing start to 2022. Alpesh Patel considers whether it is just a bump on the road or are we set for the stock market crash that some commentators have been predicting for years? Stock market turbulence throughout January has caused a significant […]
Weekly Market Commentary 31/01/22 |CBOX, DLAR, CNS|: All I want to know is…
There’s considerable institutional pressure on financial analysts to be positive, but often the most valuable information is negative: what to avoid. Bruce looks at a couple of case studies that reported last week. The FTSE 100 was flat last week, at 7,497. Matt Moulding’s THG fell to 134p, down -10% in the week and now […]
Cake Box Holdings has some accounting issues | Small-Cap Spotlight Report (LSE:CBOX)
Cake Box’s shares have tripled as its franchisees sell more egg-free cakes and open more shops. But Maynard Paton discovers the accounts contain some unusual financial disclosures and alarming remarks from the auditor. Oh dear. I had expected this article to celebrate a dynamic growth company that had commendably prospered during the pandemic. I find […]
Warehouse REIT | Real estate on the rise
Today’s featured company is a departure from the riskier and possibly sexier future opportunities and in many ways, Warehouse REIT (WHR) is a boring real estate investment trust, which is not known for its sex appeal or excitement. Sometimes, boring companies build wealth by stealth, as is the case with Warehouse REIT. It invests in […]
Weekly Commentary 27/09/21: New tech, old laws
Markets lurched downwards at the start of last week, with the FTSE 100 falling to 6,906 before recovering to 7,067. Nasdaq and the S&P also recovered during the week to 15,316 and 4,449 both moving less than half a percent. The FTSE China 50 was down 3.6%, and down 18% since the start of the […]
History of Games Workshop shares | When turnarounds become transformations
Inspired by Maynard’s article on Hornby’s turnaround, Richard examines the history of Games Workshop to imagine what challenges lie ahead if Hornby is to emulate the success of this outwardly similar hobby business. The idea for this article came from Maynard’s article about Hornby. To my mind he convincingly described a turnaround that is already […]
State of the Stock Market – Over or Undervalued?
Since the post-pandemic stock market boom, analysts and experts have warned us that the market was overvalued. Some have gone even further and submitted that we’re in a bubble that is set to burst. However, prices keep rising, suggesting many investors believe there is still value to be found. So which is it? Is the […]
Weekly Commentary 09/08/21: What $16 trillion of negative yields are signalling
Last week the FTSE 100 was up +1.1% to 7,111, Nasdaq was up 1.5% to 15,181, outperforming the S&P 500, up +0.8% to 4,429. Both the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong and the FTSE China 50 Index were up less than 1% last week. The US 10Y bond yield continued to fall to 1.19% […]
Tech Stocks or Banks for Better Returns?
Will tech stocks still provide reasonable returns for the rest of the year? Or are bank stocks a better bet?
Should We Still Sell in May and Go Away?
There is an old stock market maxim that says we should “sell in May and go away.” Like most proverbs or cliches, it has a foundation in truth.
Weekly Commentary: 25/01/21 – Expectation v surprise
I was initially unimpressed by the UK’s mass vaccination rollout. However it is important to keep updating your beliefs when data is better than you had been expecting and not miss the inflection point. From below 150K per week in December, we now have almost 5m vaccinated. My mistake was to extrapolate in a linear […]
Lessons from lockdown and other stories
This year has confirmed that most of the news is at best irrelevant to me as an investor. Worse, the news stressed me out. It regularly fed my mind with impossible problems to solve. Companies I admired closed down, temporarily I hoped. They raised money in emergency fund-raisings. They furloughed staff. So far, the determination […]
UK banks – in the eye of the storm?
Every crisis presents opportunities. A contrarian strategy of buying bank shares during the point of maximum gloom during a recession has often, but not always, been a good idea. It most definitely failed in 2008 when banks needed to raise capital and had to rely on Government bail outs. But it has worked in previous […]
When valuations don’t matter and when they do
Lots of people will tell you that the price you pay for a share really matters. This is because it has a big say on the kind of long-term returns you will make from it. What this means in practice is that paying too much for a share – too high a valuation – is likely to […]
